To Celebrate Life (Sample)
by Razgriz Legend
Summary: There is no glory in war except to survive...and he did. He has lead a positive and productive life. He's raising his family and living his life in peace. But he will always remember his weapon. He'll remember the heat and the smell of human carnage. He'll remember all the love, hate, and laughter. He'll remember his friends and those he killed...for war is sobering to the soul.


So, this is my first fanfic. I've been reading stories here for years, enjoying the product of imagination and the fiction-based closure I get for a lot of games and shows like Ace Combat, Inuyasha, Tenchi Muyo (GXP), and the like.

This is sort of a trial chapter for a story idea I have in mind. It's a story about an Osean serviceman as he reminisces about his time as a Marine in wartime. He will relive a lot of things, good and bad. But in the end, this story will illustrate the origins of his renewed appreciation of life. Personally, I understand the Osean military to largely parallel the U.S. military and I've tried to write a story based on that using my own knowledge and experience as a U.S. Marine and a big fan of the Ace Combat franchise. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the direction this goes in and I hope it leaves a wanting to se the next few chapters because the meat and potatoes will be in those parts of the story and that's where it will be interesting.

Oh yeah...everyone associated with Ace Combat commercially or otherwise reserve their rights. I don't own any of it, dig it?

_**November 7, 2010**_

_**In the east suburban are of November City.**_

His eyebrows peaked and his eyes peered over his glasses as he heard feet dancing down the stairs. He sat his sports page down on the table to see his curly-haired daughter running around the dining room table to him. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, warming the embers of a tiny smile on his face. He knew she was up to something. She kept her arms around her father's neck. "Daaaaaaaddy…" she began staring into his dark brown eyes. He smiled and looked into her emerald eyes and replied, "No." His daughter scoffed. "Aww, dad c'mon! It'll only be for a little while!" He hated when she whined or pouted. She was sixteen and acting like she had when she was eight. "Babe, let her go!" he heard from upstairs. He let out a sigh and looked up at his beautiful daughter as her smile began to creep back onto her face. She'd won this time. He dug around in his pocket and produced his car keys and handed them to her. He smiled a little. "I love you babygirl. Be careful." She kissed him again. "Love you dad." She was gone so quick he could only catch her white Nikes, small handbag, and cork-screw curls disappearing round the corner. "Tell Danielle I said hello…and wear your jacket!" he called out to her. He was able to make out a barely audible "Okay!" as his daughter left the house on her way to the movies. He shook his head chuckling as he rose from the table, now done with his paper.

He migrated into the living room and grabbed the remote to his 50-inch flat screen and turned it on, plopping down in his recliner. The time was 7 o'clock PM and the news was on. Part of his evening ritual. The dark room was illuminated by the bluish glow from his television.

"…to the sounds of close air support bombings here along the shore." a voice on TV began to say. It was a war correspondent wearing olive drab sort of expeditionary cargo clothing. He held his hand to the earpiece he wore as he was standing in the middle of a thunder storm, the thunder coupling with the sounds of distant booming from something beyond the mountainous ridgeline in the background. "That's our arty", Darren Jennings thought as his interest was peaked by the developing news story. Another man appeared on camera, next to the correspondent. He wore green camouflage MARPAT utilities caked with mud and sand. The "O.F. MARINES" was made barely readable, now. He wore an LBV with magazine and grenade pouches, his M-4 carbine slung over his shoulder. Dirt and scarce traces of face paint still blotted his aged and weary face. Darren knew the man. The face he saw was a bit different from what he'd remembered but he knew this man. He was a bit older, now. It was Gunnery Sergeant Harper, Osean Marine Corps. Darren smiled. "I'll be damned", he thought. He turned up the volume as the men spoke about the invasion. Osean Marines had landed on Bastok Peninsula earlier today. Operation Footprint was in full swing. Naval gunfire and close air support from Navy, Marine, and Air Force aircraft had pounded Yuktobanian defenses relentlessly to get the Marines ashore. Oorah. They spoke of he spectacular show of force and how this meant a turn for the better for Osea in the Circum-Pacific War.

Not long into the broadcast, Darren felt a sadness inside. He could normally control it but sometimes…sometimes it got the best of him. It ate at him. He knew the Gunnery Sergeant. Oh, he knew him. Nick Harper had been a Corporal with Darren when their unit deployed to Belkan battlefields in 1995. During the Belkan war, Darren had kept close by two very good friends and compatriots. One was Lance Corporal Eric Travers and the other was Corporal Nick Harper. They'd trained, eaten, slept, struggled, fought, and killed together. Theirs was a brotherhood…a bond-one forged between men only in the face of death…in the heat of combat. They'd shared likes and dislikes; pleasures and fears; their backgrounds and interests. Darren was a product of a rather organic upbringing in southern Osea. Nick's parents were from Usea but made a living in the north-eastern region od Osea. Eric had grown up part of a well-to-do family in the west. The military had a way of bringing vastly different people together. It had a way of keeping one's horizons broadened and their and deepening one's acceptance of different people. Incidentally, that often came from off-color and otherwise offensive jokes made at another person's expense. That's just how it was. Deep down most knew it was all out of love.

Darren thought of when he'd first joined the Marine Corps at the end of a long Summer in 1993. Darren's father had been apprehensive about his son's decision but was reassured by Darren's grandfather who was an Osean Army veteran of the second World War. His mother was even less thrilled. There had been a lot of crying and yelling. Darren had made his choice, though. He wanted to serve as his grandfather and great-grandfather had done before and he wanted to be with the best. He had fallen in Love with the Marine Corps. He'd been infatuated with stories of battlefield glory and the brotherhood-the fraternity that was the Osean Marine Corps. He had been out of high school 6 months and he was ready to board that bus to the fabled Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island in south-east Osea. It was legendary…known for forging the world elite-Marines. It was a small island surrounded by swampland with bugs and humidity many had never before encountered. Then, there were the legendary Marine Corps Drill Instructors.

Recruits would never see them sleep or change clothes. They'd never see them smile or laugh and would seldom see them eat. They would appear to be more than human. Omnipotent. They were scary and they were tough. They didn't believe in reason. They only knew one thing. They knew you were a lowly, disgusting, filthy, and stupid recruit. You wanted to be a Marine…but you weren't one yet…and they'd be damned if they would let you become one without making you pay dearly for the entirety of your three month stay on what they called "their island'. Their uniforms were tight and pristine. Flawless. The wore green duty belts with shined brass NCO buckles and there were the well known "Smokey Bear" Campaign covers they wore on their heads. The Senior Drill Instructors wore black belts. The Senior was calm…usually. He was "Daddy". If your junior Drill Instructor's were "killing you", "fucking you up", "slaying you", or whatever else you called it, "Daddy" would sometimes save you. Of course, this was NEVER because he cared about you of the other 60 to 80 other nasty little disguising maggots and motherfuckers you suffered with. It was simply in the interest of time.

After all… there was a lot of training to be done.


End file.
